


A Pirate's Life For Me

by princehamlet



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Clone Wars, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2018-12-08 08:46:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11643033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princehamlet/pseuds/princehamlet
Summary: The Jedi Purge has only just begun, and Jedi youngling Katooni runs to the only place she knows she'll somehow be safest: the den of thieves and scoundrels owned by the one and only pirate Captain Hondo Ohnaka.





	1. Chapter 1

Katooni prided herself on always being prepared. Of her particular class of younglings, she was the most organized, the one who always piped up with the good, functional plan. 

Yet even she would admit that there was no way she _ever_ could have properly prepared for this particular evening. 

In the morning, she had eaten breakfast with Ganodi and Petro. The food had been surprisingly delicious. Children though they were, they were still strongly involved in the affairs of war, as all Jedi were, and the chance of rest was always rare. Ganodi's eyes had sparkled in the lovely, delighted way that her species' eyes could. Petro had laughed. That morning, everything had seemed so ... normal, as if they were finally getting the taste of routineness, of childhood.

In the evening, both Ganodi and Petro had been gunned down by the soldiers that inhabited the Temple. As Katooni ran, tears stinging her wide eyes & blaster shots still ringing in her ears, she cut through hallways strewn with the bodies of her family. Order 66 had been enacted, and the Jedi Purge had only just begun.

With stumbling footsteps, she dashed into the hangar, her mind buzzing. Soldiers were there waiting, their guns manned and ready, their helmeted heads turning to notice her. The Force seemed to swell and crash all around her, like mighty tides of water. A great evil dwelled in this place; Katooni could feel it without even reaching out with the tendrils of the Force. The sinister atmosphere was ubiquitous and natural, like it had lived and grown in the Temple just as she had. Her breaths coming in shrill, panicked gasps, she threw out her hands & utilized a great wave of the Force to throw back a small troop of soldiers, their plasma blasts hitting the walls and ceiling as they fumbled. It was a small opening, but she'd take it.

Katooni had never felt anything like the panic she was experiencing in that moment. Her mind had never before focused _solely_ on her desire to survive. She was ten years old, and she was now a fugitive, running from this group of men attempting to take her life for reasons she could not comprehend -- from men who had already taken the lives of everyone she knew.

More scared than she had ever been before, she ran up the ramp of a ship, the model of which she didn't have the time nor luxury to notice. Attempting to ignore the way her hands shook & the way her knees were on the verge of buckling, she immediately ran to the pilot's seat and strapped herself in. In a moment of sheer terror, her gaze fell upon the controls and didn't recognize a single button. "Stop it, Katooni!" She whispered harshly to herself, wiping away her consistent tearstream and attempting to regulate her breathing. Beginning to get a grip, she repeated a piece of the Jedi mantra: " _There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion, there is peace._ "

The controls began to make much more sense as her head cleared and will to survive strengthened. With determined eyes, she moved the weapons controls to rid her attackers, watching with dimming vision the way their armored bodies fell. (She refused to think about the fact that the clone soldiers were men she had often eaten lunch with, men she had seen laughing and hugging, men who were friends to the Jedi. She couldn't comprehend in the present moment the fact that they all wanted her, specifically, dead.) 

Once her ship was off the ground, she rushed it out of the Temple hangar and into Coruscanti air traffic. She kept going, going, going until she was out of the airlines and into open space. For an eerie amount of time, she felt nothing at all -- as if she were floating endlessly, emotionlessly, like a star in the void of the galaxy. The traffic in space was out of this world: everyone was trying to get away, to save themselves. For a while, she looked out her viewport and simply watched the planet she'd grown up on, as if silently etching its flickering lights and multicoloredness into her young mind.

When a voice crinkled in on her comm system asking for data files, as was mandatory for one going offplanet, she provided them, telling them blankly that she carrying cargo important to the mining planet of Gorse. They let her through, and suddenly she was there, cruising, no longer under the threat of attack. With experienced hands, she punched in Hyperspace coordinates -- for _Florrum;_ it was the only other civilized place she'd visited besides the Temple in which she'd grown. 

When the stars streaked her viewport and she & her ship lurched into hyperspace, its blueness all her eyes could see, was when Katooni truly had the chance to realize what had become of everyone around her. Sobs erupted from the very pit of her chest, and even as she wept passionately, she attempted to calm herself: " _There is no death, there is the Force. There is no death, there is the ..._ " And yet she could not repress her emotions, as was the popular tactic in Jedi teachings; her tears drowned out her words, her vast emotion taking the controls of her mind. She was utterly alone. The Jedi had never prepared her for a situation in which they were all _dead._

Katooni cried until there were seemingly no tears left in her, and then she simply leaned back in the pilot's seat, her head aching vaguely. She had always been the organized one of her friends. She had always been the one with the good, functional plan.

And when her ship emerged back into open space, the yellow-orange, sandy planet of Florrum a picturesque orb illuminating her viewport, she knew that this plan was going to be as good as she was going to get. Her hands wiped away the tearstreaks left on her dark face, and shakily, she took a deep breath. Although only ten, the Jedi had taught her to handle herself very well. Katooni tried not to think about the present situation as a raspy voice contacted her via the old comm systme: "Who're you? State your business." 

Florrum was a planet mainly inhabited by Weequay pirates; the young girl could easily imagine the leathery, ridged face of a Weequay woman speaking with her. Unable to stifle a sniffle, Katooni leaned into her comm and said with as much confidence as she could muster. "I am here to speak with Captain Hondo Ohnaka, please. It's extremely urgent. Tell him Katooni is here to take him up on his offer."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katooni finally encounters Hondo.

Katooni was wary to leave her ship behind in the dusty hangar inhabited by pirates who promised they'd be careful taking care of it. She knew, naturally, they'd be raiding it for anything they could pocket, but she supposed she didn't mind. The ship belonged to a Jedi Order that quite possibly no longer existed; it certainly didn't belong to her, nor did she have any attachments to the items inside. The woman who had initially contacted her on her comm walked beside her, one gruff hand squeezing her shoulder and occasionally giving her a little shove, as if she were a prisoner to the pirates and not someone who had willingly come for an appointment with their captain. 

Katooni was glad to be around the crew, however. It was around people that she was able to most hold her composure together, as if she were an actor on stage. She walked with her chin tipped upward, her icy eyes scanning the room with dignity and emotionlessness. Her mind was blank of the horrors she'd just witnessed. 

As the two emerged into the main building where the pirates lived, Katooni was surprised by how much the sensation of it felt normal to her. She'd been there before, not long ago when Hondo had kidnapped her and a couple of friends in an attempt to steal and sell the kyber crystals inside their lightsabers. Although it wasn't the best first impression Hondo could've given her, Katooni knew deep down that he was a complex man who wasn't all bite. Eventually, too, Hondo had agreed to fight alongside the Jedi against Grievous, and had even been the one to help encourage Katooni to finish her lightsaber -- the very one hanging against her waist now. Oddly enough, she considered him a friend ... or at the very least, a semi - reliable ally.

She had no one else in the galaxy. She was trying not to think about it. 

She glanced around with a sort of dampened amusement to see all the pirates going about their normal life. Arm wrestling, talking and laughing in boisterous voices, lying drunk against tables, playing cards in huge swarms, tapping feet against the ground or playing instruments in soft corners or fighting or smoking. It was unlike anything Katooni had ever lived among in the Temple, but she found it a worthy distraction nonetheless. These people were happy, completely unaware (or at least, uncaring) of the disaster on Coruscant. Although an un-Jedilike sensation, Katooni allowed herself to sink into the atmosphere, finding that it helped relieve the stress she was currently in. The Weequay woman veered her away from the crowd and up some stairs. They were heading towards the captain's quarters. 

"Someone here to see you, Captain," the woman rasped, knocking solidly on his door with her ringed fingers. "Some little kid." 

"Kid, eh? Come in." Hondo's masked voice made Katooni's heart jump with relief. He hadn't changed at all. The sensation of something familiar relieved her immensely. 

The door whooshed open, and Katooni was happy to see recognition widen Hondo's goggled eyes as well when his gaze fell upon her. No doubt _he'd_ at least heard of the incident at the Jedi Temple at Coruscant -- after all, he was up in his quarters brooding all alone as opposed to with his crew, happy as ever. "Leave us," Hondo quickly said, to which the woman pivoted on her heel and left immediately, the door closing behind her. Conflict was clear on the older man's expression, uncertainty, as he and Katooni simply looked upon each other on opposite sides of the room for a long moment, clearly in shock at how the Force had brought them together again.

"Katooni? My dear, how did you survive?" That was the kicker. He _had_ heard about it. He came out from around his desk with haste, moving to take a knee in front of her, as if to assess the damage. Somehow, his hands braced on either side of her arms made something in Katooni crack like thin ice once more. She opened her mouth to say something -- to tell him how scared she'd been, the clones she'd killed, her friends and family who were dead, her home that was destroyed -- but only found herself greeted with a whole tide of emotions. 

Katooni didn't want to cry anymore. That, too, was not befitting of a Jedi. But Hondo saw the way her features twisted in misery as she attempted to quell the storm of terror plaguing her -- emotions far too strong for an adult, much less a ten year old child -- and pulled her in against his chest. Katooni was surprised at this, not only because physical contact like this was not something often shared between her kind, but because this did not seem like the Hondo she knew. Gruff and irritable, never quite wanting to let his true feelings show.

She silently reached out through the Force, tapping into the Weequay's emotions, perhaps rude though it might've been. She saw fear there, too. Fear that the Jedi he knew were all dead. Fear at what would happen to his crew next. Hondo seemed to know something no one else knew. Silently, not allowing herself to cry, she returned his embrace, allowing herself to linger in his presence, in the way his jacket smelled like plasma and alcohol. She wondered if he had ever been a father. He seemed to know what to do.

"You have seen many horrors today, Katooni," It was half a question, half a statement. There was solemnity in his voice like she'd never heard before.   
Weakly, she nodded. 

"You need rest. Rest before we can speak of anything that must be spoken about." His thickly accented words rolled off his tongue with maturity that surprised her. He was ever the jokester. She was glad, at least, that he was taking this seriously. And Katooni was more than happy with the concept of rest. 

The Weequay captain pulled away, once more bracing his hands on her arms. "Thank you, Hondo." She finally spoke, voice soft, on the verge of breaking. In an attempt to give some form of explanation to the man who was, no doubt, _worried_ , Katooni continued softly: "I didn't know what to do, or where to go. It was either here or Ilum, and I wasn't equipped to... I didn't know..."  
"I know. It's okay, Katooni." Hondo assured her hastily. "You are brave. Very, very brave."  
"Hondo ... is it safe here?" Katooni asked him, the childish fear in her voice astounding even her. She felt small. Terribly, terribly small. 

"I don't know, my dear." Hondo admitted. "I don't know if _any_ of us will be safe anymore."


End file.
